Former Dynamo player and assistant coach of Kolos, Taras Mykhalyk, shared his thoughts on the Shakhtar-Dynamo match (3:1) as part of the 11th round of the Ukrainian Championship.
— What are your impressions of the Clasico? Was the score reflective of the game?
— I can’t say the score reflected the game. Shakhtar dominated the first half and played for the goal. Then, at times, Dynamo slightly leveled the game.
But it was already like the good old Clasico, as it used to be. Maybe there weren’t many scoring opportunities, but there was intensity, emotions, it was interesting to watch.
— Did you enjoy this intensity compared to the Clasicos of recent years?
— As I said, there weren’t too many opportunities, although the score was 3:1, there were enough goals, but the intensity seen in recent Clasicos was lacking. Now, Denys Popov heightened it with his statements, it was visible that there was intensity. It was also clear from the Dynamo boys, from Andriy Yarmolenko, a veteran who has gone through more than one Clasico. This match was much more interesting to me than those before, except for the cup one. Particularly in terms of intensity.
— How do you feel about Popov’s statement and the chain reaction it caused among Shakhtar’s Brazilians?
— Like everyone says: Shakhtar’s coach didn’t even have to set an agenda or motivate the team. Maybe Denys didn’t mean it as he said, I don’t know, not ready to discuss. But he raised the intensity, and there was no need to motivate Shakhtar for this game, those same Brazilians, they were already charged up.
I generally think that such expressions are not quite right or correct. Once there were some Brazilians in Shakhtar, now there are others, that’s their issue. Dynamo should focus on their game, their football, not look at Shakhtar, how it was and is now.
— There was a controversial moment in this match with the score at 2:1 regarding a potential unawarded penalty on Shola Ogundane, when he was knocked down by Konoplya. Do you think it should have been given?
— Not ready to say 100%. But probably, if such a situation was outside the penalty box, he would have given a free kick. But he was afraid to give a penalty. Here, it’s 50−50, maybe more likely yes than no.
But there’s no point in discussing it, because in our game with Oleksandriya now, a clean push in the back—and they say that outside the penalty box it would be a free kick, but it doesn’t draw a penalty because he embellished or something. How our referees interpret, I’m not taking to discuss. I understand Shovkovskyi, who knew this moment could decide the fate of the match. But I try not to discuss referee decisions, let those competent in this do so. I’m curious what the referees' supervisor will say about this moment.
We’ll wait, we’ll see. Although it won’t change the score: whether he says the referee was right or wrong, it won’t affect anything, and Dynamo won’t gain points from it.
— At the end of the match, there was an episode where Yarmolenko grabbed Bondar by the throat. How do you feel overall about this episode and how the referee reacted, or rather did not react to it?
— As I say: the intensity was already high, emotions. I was the same: now somewhere old matches pop up, how we played—it was completely different. Like when Sanya Aliyev jumped at Srna—nowadays you’d get a red card for that, back then the referee gave yellow.
These are Andriy’s emotions, he’s a leader in Dynamo—many write him off, I think he can still help and is helping the team. It’s clear that he might not last the whole match now.
The referee should have shown at least a yellow card. But these are emotions, there’s nothing more to add. I was the same, so I’m not ready to advise or condemn anything.
Even now in veteran football, it happens that I run on emotions. Because football without emotions is not interesting. I wouldn’t want such moments, I’d want more of the sport. But in this Clasico, I liked this intensity.